A Back to the Future fan fiction short story by Anakin McFly.
Disclaimer: Back to the Future, its characters and universe are the property of Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale. The computer spell check doesn't seem to recognise Robert Zemeckis' last name. But it doesn't recognise any part of my own name, so I guess that isn't saying much.
Prologue
It was amazing how Doc's garage could look so much like an actual home, Marty McFly found himself wondering for the umpteenth time. From the outside, nothing much had changed, but the interior was now cosy and well furnished, mostly the result of Clara's work. In late 1985, after having settled down in the nineteenth century, Emmett Brown had moved most of his belongings out of the garage and into his home a hundred years away, but now the complete possessions of the Brown family were starting to pile up in the garage, with more items coming in with each new trip in the time train.
Many things, of course, were not able to make the trip through time for the simple reason that they were just too large to fit into the train's cabin. More than once, Emmett had remarked half-jokingly that perhaps it would be a good idea to convert a moving van into a time machine. The train was long and colourful and visually appealing to most people under the age of ten, but it lacked that one important thing: space. The vehicle itself was huge, but the cabin was another story altogether. Events of December 1985 had seen six people squeezing into the cabin, and that had started Emmett off thinking that maybe it was time for a new machine; one less inconspicuous than the train, and with more space – a caravan, perhaps?
But those ideas had to be pushed aside for the moment, what with all the many little problems and issues that needed to be settled before the Brown family could make their permanent move back to the future. For one, there were all the different personal documents that needed to be obtained; Emmett had gone into the future and had twentieth-century birth certificates and passports forged and made in a shop that provided such services for twenty-first century people who wanted these kind of things as keepsakes or just for fun. In the future, such documents had become outdated and were no longer valid… but in 1985, they were just as good as original.
Emmett meant to keep as low a profile as possible when he moved back, to avoid any unnecessary questions; but to be on the safe side, he had a rough cover story ready to explain why he had managed to get a wife and two children – the elder of whom was nine years old – when he had been single just a few months back. The fabricated story went that, seven years ago after the two boys had been born, the family had been separated in an accident out at sea and Emmett had been presumed dead. Clara and the boys had lived together until then, with her working as a schoolteacher, and only recently had they learnt of his survival.
It was a cover story that still needed quite a bit more work, but Emmett decided that it would have to do for the moment until he thought up a more plausible one. Besides, if anyone started getting too curious and poking their noses into places they shouldn't, there was always the memory-wiping device. Emmett had got hold of it from the Hill Valley General Hospital in 2030, and it had proved a valuable asset on several occasions.
Chapter One
April 1986
Hill Valley, California
"Found it yet?" Marty asked, turning to look at Verne, who had his head buried in a cardboard box marked 'MOVIES'. Verne emerged from the box, looking frustrated.
"It's not here," he said. "I think it's still at home."
Marty flopped down on the sofa in front of the plasma television set. "So I guess that means no Star Wars today, huh?"
"Yeah." Verne stuck his head back into the box and moved DVDs and the occasional VCD or videotape around. "Want to see Matrix Reloaded?"
"Is that good?"
"No," Verne admitted. "But I thought it might be interestin', because of what happened last year."
"Yeah." Marty stared wistfully at nothing in particular. "I wonder if Neo managed to get home," he mused.
The seven-year-old shrugged and left the box, going over to sit with Marty. "If he did, he's goin' to die in the end, unless he changes stuff… but maybe even if he changes 'em, he'll still have to die in the end 'cause it's the only way to end the war."
"Kind of a pathetic life," Marty remarked.
"He kept tryin' to take my pizza."
"You're obsessed with pizza."
Silence passed between them for several moments, as they sat and remembered the events of four months ago. At least, it had been four months for Marty. For Verne, December 1985 had been barely more than a week ago.
"Want to watch Back to the Future?" Verne asked suddenly, breaking the silence.
Marty cringed. "No."
More silence.
Suddenly, a flash of inspiration hit Verne… and a sly grin spread across his face that went unnoticed by Marty. He glanced surreptitiously at the newly put up partition that separated his father's makeshift laboratory from the rest of the garage-house.
"I'm bored," Verne said, trying to sound as casual and as bored as possible.
Marty sighed. "Tell me about it," he muttered. Right now, he could have been jamming away on his guitar with the rest of the Pinheads, but in stead he was stuck here babysitting Doc's younger son while he and Clara went house hunting. Jules had stayed back in 1896, but as usual, Verne had not wanted to miss out on a trip to the future, even if it meant that he had to stay put in the garage because Doc dared not risk going around in the 1986 public with his son – not with a cover story as pitiful as the one he currently had. There wouldn't be much point in denying that Verne was his offspring if someone asked, because sooner or later the family would be living relatively permanently in Hill Valley circa late-twentieth century.
"I wanna go out."
"You know you're not allowed to," Marty replied.
"Are you allowed to go out?"
Marty wondered just where this was leading to. "Yeah, I guess… but I promised Doc I'd stay here with you. And they'll prob'ly be back in an hour or so anyway."
"So you can go out, as long as I stay here?"
Marty stared at the boy. "Is there some point to all these questions?"
"Can I go out as you?" Verne asked instead.
"I sai… What?"
Verne slid off the sofa and headed towards Emmett's makeshift lab. "C'mon," he said, glancing back at Marty. Uncertainly, the teen got up and followed him.
Doc's small laboratory was undoubtedly the messiest part of the garage. He had been diligently moving his things over here from 1895, and the place was getting more and more cluttered. Furthermore, he didn't want anyone messing around with or rearranging his things – although the boys took certain liberties with that when he was not around – and as a result, the place had had never seen a broom in quite some time.
Marty glanced briefly at several dust bunnies in a corner of the room, in the midst of doing what bunnies do best: multiplying. Then his gaze turned to Verne, who was struggling to lift up a modified version of Doc's failed mind-reader machine. Now, instead of a suction pump at one end, there were two similar contraptions attached to each other by long wires.
"Hey, isn't that the mind-reader thing your dad had in 'fifty-five?" Marty asked.
"Yeah," Verne said, face screwed up in concentration as he made adjustments to the bulky devices. "But it actually sort of works now… that day Jules was tryin' to read my thoughts because he wanted to find out where I hid all his underwear. Dad and Mum were both out looking at houses again, and he was s'posed to look after me, but he tied me to a chair and put one of these on my head. But he'd accidentally knocked it against somethin', and somethin' got changed, so when he switched it on somethin' else happened…"
"What?" Marty asked, silently marvelling at Verne's ability to use the word 'something' three times in one sentence.
"Here. I'll show you," Verne said. He sat down on a chair and lifted one of the mind-readers onto his head. "Put on the other one."
Marty stared doubtfully at the strange contraption.
"It's safe," Verne added. "I've done this before, twice."
Slowly, Marty put it on, and Verne grinned. "You should sit down," he suggested.
Marty glanced around, but the only suitable seats he saw – apart from the chair that Verne had taken – were dubious-looking boxes filled with stuff. "Nah, it doesn't matter," he said. "I'll stand."
Verne hesitated a moment, then shrugged. "Okay then," he said, and flicked a switch.
Without warning, Marty was suddenly yanked into darkness in a way that felt unnervingly similar to the time last year when he'd been grabbed into the so-called 'real world'. But this time, the journey was much shorter.
When it ended, the impact rocked his chair onto its two back legs. It teetered dangerously there for a moment, then righted itself back on all fours.
Eyes shut, Marty suddenly wondered: Chair? What chair?
The thought wandered through his mind in search of something to connect with… and he suddenly had a very bad feeling about it.
Slowly, Marty opened his eyes to see himself staggering away from the wall the impact had thrown him into. And Marty stared as the too-familiar brown-haired teenager gave him a wounded look.
"I told ya you should have sat down," Marty heard his own voice say.
Marty felt himself slip into a mental Twilight Zone. "Verne?" he asked in a half-whisper, but the voice that came out was not his.
"Yeah, who else?" Verne took the mind-reading device off what seconds ago had been Marty's head and glanced around. "Things look different from up here," he commented.
Marty looked down at his seven-year-old hands, fingers hurting from slightly from digging through stacks of movies, and a chill ran down his spine… only technically it wasn't his spine any more. And he knew with sudden conviction that if he were to look into a mirror now, he was going to see Verne's face.
Coming over, Verne lifted the device off the stunned boy, and waved a teenage hand in front of Marty in the universal gesture of checking to see if anyone's home. "Marty? You okay?"
The now-seven-year-old was trembling. Thoughts were creeping into Marty's mind… thoughts that were not his, but at the same time were… thoughts that told him that his name was Verne Newton Brown, and that the teenager in front of him was Marty McFly, his dad's best friend from 1985, who could skateboard really well and play guitar and do other kinds of cool stuff…
A sudden violent mental protestation cut through the foreign thoughts.
No! I'm Marty McFly, I'm Marty McFly, I'm Marty McFly, I'm Marty…"Are you okay?" Verne asked again. When no response came, he gently lifted the boy off the chair. Feeling strangely detached, Marty put his arms around the teenager's shoulders and held on as Verne carried him over to the sofa and put him down.
"Marty?" Verne asked, concern in his voice. "Say something… you're scaring me."
"Switch us back, Verne," came the shaky reply. "Switch us back…"
The concern vanished, and Verne gave him a creepy smile. "Nah, not so soon. Where's the fun in that? Let me be you for a while… I was getting bored."
Numbly, Marty got off the sofa and found himself staring at a coffee table which had suddenly become so much taller than he remembered. He ran his fingers through unfamiliar blonde hair, and watched as Verne pulled out Marty's wallet from his jeans pocket and examined its contents.
"Whoa," Verne began, counting the notes of money. "Where'd you get all this ca… Oh." There was a slight pause as Verne digested the sudden extract from Marty's memories that had come to him in answer to his question. "Yeah," he said absent-mindedly, closing the wallet and sticking it back into the pocket from whence it came.
The phone rang.
Verne and Marty glanced at each other, then Verne dashed over and picked it up.
"Hello?" A pause. "Hey, Jen…"
Marty's eyes widened. He rushed over to Verne and tried to yank the telephone receiver away from his ear.
"Yeah, I'm fi… OW!" Verne dropped the phone, and it lay dangling off the hook until Marty grabbed it.
"Jennifer?" he gasped into the phone.
There was a pause on the other end. Then… "Verne?"
"No! Jen, it's me, Marty, Marty McFly…"
"Uh-huh," came the sceptical-sounding response. Just then, Verne wrestled back control of the phone and held it to his ear, using his free hand to pin Marty down.
"Hello?" Yeah, sorry 'bout that… Yeah, that was Verne… No, you don't need to come over… OW!" Verne whacked Marty's hand away, and the boy withdrew in pain. "No… that was nothing… Jen, I swear I'm fine… really… Yeah, okay. Bye."
Verne put down the phone and turned furiously to look at Marty. "What was that for?"
"That call was for me," Marty said softly.
"Yeah, well, I'm you now, okay?"
"No you're not."
"Really?" Verne thought for a moment, and suddenly he smirked. "Okay then, if that's the case, I suppose you could tell me what your birthday is."
"Yeah."
"So what is it?"
Marty opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. And then he was hit with the sudden horrible realisation that he could not remember. He knew Verne's birthday all right, although he'd never known it before… but he hadn't the faintest idea when Marty McFly had been born.
Verne was fixing him with a knowing grin. "Well?"
Panic was slowly creeping up on Marty as he forced himself to think. It was 1986… he was seventeen in 1985, so 1985 minus 17 would give him his birth year… but what the zark was 1985 – 17? Okay, scrap the 19, Marty thought desperately. 85 minus 17… His seven-year-old brain struggled to complete the calculation and failed. Verne had never been into maths.
"I… can't remember," Marty said in a strangely choked voice.
"June 26, 1968," Verne stated, staring at Marty with the blue eyes that had once been his.
The date sounded vaguely familiar to Marty, like something he should have known but didn't. And then to his horror, he heard the garage door being unlocked from the outside.
Verne got up and tousled the seven-year-old's hair. "Look's like they're back," he said, going over to the door as it started to open.
Doc and Clara entered the garage, and Verne smiled at them in greeting. "Hey, you're early…"
That's Mum and Dad, Marty's thoughts informed him, and he futilely tried to ignore them. He tried to remember George and Lorraine McFly, and Dave and Linda, but those memories seemed so distant, so far away… and getting more faded by the minute.
"We thought you might want to be home for dinner," Doc replied. "It wouldn't be a good idea to have your parents wondering where you were."
"Yeah, I guess…"
Feeling as though he were in some sort of trance, Marty came over to join them. Doc looked at him. "And how were you?"
"We were fine," Verne replied for him. "We played on the computer a while, then we watched a bunch of movies… I wanted to see the Star Wars prequels but apparently they haven't been packed yet… But we still had fun. Right, Verne?"
Faking a small smile, Marty nodded. Part of him wanted to go crazy and start yelling that he was Marty McFly, not Verne… but why should anyone believe him? What proof did he have? He couldn't even remember his own birth date… his best hope now was to play along, hoping that sooner or later Verne would tire of this game and switch them back.
If he ever did.
The other three were talking, but none of their words fully registered in Marty's traumatised mind, until he heard his voice saying: "I'll guess I'll be going then. See you guys another time."
Marty watched numbly as the teenager waved goodbye and stepped out of the garage. Then the door thudded shut, and the creeping panic suddenly escalated in him. His pulse raced as he stared at the closed door… from what seemed a far-off distance he heard Clara calling Verne's name…
He felt dizzy, his small body shaking with each beat of his heart. He heard his panicked breathing, loud in his ears, and all around the daTHUMP daTHUMP daTHUMP of his heart…
Red began to cloud his vision. Everything started looking static-y. Distantly, Marty felt hands on his shoulders, and what may or may not have been a face looking at him.
His vision turned almost completely to static and Marty closed his eyes in agony.
daTHUMP daTHUMP daTHUMP…Then blackness overcame him, and Marty knew no more.
TO BE CONTINUED…
